Comparative analysis of main aromatic acids and phthalides in Angelicae Sinensis Radix, Chuanxiong Rhizoma, and Fo-Shou-San by a validated UHPLC–TQ-MS/MS

•UHPLC–TQ-MS/MS is used for the quantification of Foshousan and its combination herbs.•Three aromatic acids and six phthalides were determined.•The content changes of main components were compared.•The proposed method was fully validated.•The quantification results supported the previous synergistic effects.

Fo-Shou-San (FSS) is an ancient and classic formula comprised of Angelicae Sinensis Radix (Danggui, DG) and Chuanxiong Rhizoma (Chuanxiong, CX) in a weight ratio of 3:2 with nourishing blood and dissipating blood stasis activities for the treatment of blood deficiency and blood stasis. In this study, a ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a triple quadrupole electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–TQ-MS/MS) method was developed for simultaneous quantification of three aromatic acids (chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, ferulic acid) and six phthalides (senkyunolide I, senkyunolide H, senkyunolide A, butylphthalide, ligustilide and butylidenephthalide) in DG, CX and FSS. The nine components were simultaneously determined within 10 min. The proposed method was fully validated in terms of linearity, sensitivity, precision, repeatability as well as recovery. The results showed that there were significant differences in their contents of DG and CX, and there were remarkable differences between the theorized content and observed content in FSS. The content of each component in formulae was not just the simple addition among its content in the single herbs. These research results might be helpful to illustrate the drug interactions during decocting process of herb pair according to the quantity changes of these marker compounds, which would lay foundation to further reveal the compatibility rule of the herb pair and other related formulae.

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